Squirrel's Luck
by Racke
Summary: Sakura's team fails to pass their jounin-sensei's test, and the Genin Corps loom high and daunting. But Sakura was always too stubborn for her own good.
1. Chapter 1

XXX

 **Story** : [Squirrel's Luck]

 **Summary** : Sakura's team fails to pass their jounin-sensei's test, and the Genin Corps loom high and daunting. But Sakura was always too stubborn for her own good.

 **Genre** : Adventure, Romance

XXX

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

XXX

Failing wasn't something Sakura was used to.

She hadn't always succeeded as gracefully as she would've liked, and she hadn't always been victorious, but she didn't fail.

Except she had.

Sasuke had ended up on _Naruko's_ team, which hadn't really been much of an issue. After all, even if she was a girl, Naruko was kind of-... Sakura wasn't really sure that the girl even really understood that boys and girls were different. She could be kind of weird like that.

Sakura not ending up on Sasuke's team hadn't been a failure. A set-back, yes. But it wasn't like anyone else worth worrying about had gotten the position in her stead, and it wasn't really a failure from her side of things even if that would've been the case.

No, the failure came in that all of their jounin-sensei were allowed to hold a separate extra exam for them after graduation. And her team had failed.

She was pretty sure that their jounin-sensei hadn't wanted to take on a team and had as a result been extra-harsh on them. However, in the end, that was irrelevant. The jounin-sensei decided on the test, and if the Hokage accepted that then that was it. Sink or swim, it was up to the genin to impress.

They'd failed to impress.

They had two choices, really. They could resign as a ninja and live the rest of their lives as civilians, or join the Genin Corps. It was an individual decision, though their jounin-sensei had at least been merciful enough to explain to them what being part of the Genin Corps actually meant before leaving them to it.

The Genin Corps were where hopes and aspirations went to die.

To summarize, once a person landed themselves in the Genin Corps they were on their own as far as development went. No teachers to guide them, no steady teammates to grow stronger alongside, a whole slew of crap-missions that nobody else wanted to deal with, and the steady risk of being used as cannon-fodder in an emergency.

There was something called the Chunin Corps, from which ANBU oftentimes recruited, but most of the ninja who made it that far were either apprentices to other ninja or paper-ninja who only held the chunin-title because they needed the security-clearance that came with it. The odds of a ninja managing to go from the Genin Corps and into the Chunin Corps was about one-in-a-hundred, and that was including all of those managing to become technically-chunin by paperwork.

The odds of someone actually managing to go from the Genin Corps into the Chunin Corps proper? Was more akin to one-in-a- _thousand_. And the only real upswing they'd find in that situation was a higher salary and slightly less-shitty missions, along with the ability to choose at least some of their own teammates.

As for the odds of being recruited into ANBU? Their jounin-sensei couldn't even begin to imagine how low they'd be. Though he did point out that ANBU wasn't exactly a nice place for anyone, and that the longest anyone had _ever_ managed to survive in their shadowy ranks was two decades – which had apparently also set one hell of a record.

There was of course always the option to retire from ANBU after being recruited, but half the people who did that went around the bend within a few years simply because they'd forgotten what it was like to live normal lives. So, if anything, retiring tended to _lessen_ their expected lifespans.

Either way, this left Sakura with a choice.

Admit to her failure and live the rest of her life as a civilian. Or join the Genin Corps and spend the rest of her life working herself to death for the sake of Konohagakure, one way or the other.

The sensible choice would be to admit her failure and return to her – no doubt secretly relieved – civilian parents in disgrace, and then continue on with whatever life had to offer from there, which likely would include a long and reasonably wealthy life as a merchant. Or to be married off to the highest bidder by her very practical parents, but that wasn't very likely unless she somehow ended up getting tangled in court-politics instead of honest trade.

So obviously, Sakura signed up for the Genin Corps.

She'd never been very good at admitting defeat gracefully.

XXX

All three of them went into the Genin Corps.

Within the first three weeks of trudging through sewers and pulling weeds, one of them turned in his resignation. There was a bit of a holdup due to the contract he'd signed when actually entering the Genin Corps, but the end result was that he was gone by the seventh week.

Her second almost-teammate was still going strong from what little Sakura had heard of it, along with several others of their former classmates who'd also failed their jounin-sensei's test.

Sakura hated it.

She hated the stench of the sewers, she hated the lazy clients who picked their noses instead of doing their own damn work, she hated seeing new faces everywhere she looked until she gave up on even trying to strike up conversation with them, and she hated the understanding that everyone looked at her and said 'career genin'.

She didn't have any amazing talents, she didn't have shinobi-contacts, she didn't even have _friends_ at this point, and there was no way out of this hell-hole of a job except surrender.

She hated it.

More than anything though, she hated her own stubborn refusal to admit defeat, because the only way to escape becoming a career genin and still remain as a shinobi was to distinguish herself through an absolutely excellent mission-record. And for someone stuck pulling weeds most of the time, that was just laughable.

There were no teachers to ask for help, no senpai to look to for advice, and no supervision for if she screwed something up and managed to kill herself with a backfiring technique whilst training on her own.

She looked up techniques in the shinobi library in the sections that she actually had access to in her position as a genin. She read up on chakra-theory and taijutsu-stances and medicine and jutsu-theory in general.

Her parents weren't exactly supportive of her life-choices, but there wasn't anything they could do about it considering the way her contract with Konohagakure classified her as an adult. They'd briefly tried pushing anyway, going on about how she lived at their house, but a brief reminder that there was such a thing as communal living for genin available dirt-cheap caused that brief stint of excitement to die down blissfully quick.

Sakura didn't really want to move out of her home, but she _refused_ to admit defeat like that.

By the third month, everything started to blur together. Wake up, do shitty missions with faceless people for other faceless people, study at the library, train desperately, sleep. With eating-breaks randomly interjected where she could find the time.

Then, for the first time ever, she got the clearance to go on an actual C-Rank.

In hindsight, she shouldn't have gotten her hopes up.

XXX

It was a simple escort-mission. A small family-caravan that needed to travel through a bit of bandit-infested countryside. Easy enough for two chunin and four genin.

Except somehow they managed to stumble across Iwa-nin in the middle of a very secretive mission of their own. Sakura could tell that it was a secretive mission, because their reaction upon being spotted by Konoha-nin had been to attack with lethal intent.

Three jounin and a chunin. They didn't stand a chance.

What with it having become alarmingly clear early on that they were doomed, Sakura grabbed one of their younger charges and ran for it. It wasn't the most dignified way of dealing with enemy-nin, and she was sure that there'd be people who frowned upon her actions of leaving teammates behind. But her presence wouldn't really matter one way or the other, and the Iwa-nin were clearly aiming to kill the caravan-members too.

Better that she make it back to Konoha to report Iwa's movements, than that she died hopelessly along with the rest of her team. Better still that she managed to keep at least one of the caravan-members safe – they were just a little kid, barely old enough to string sentences together properly.

So she ran.

Not that it exactly helped much considering that she was dealing with three jounin and a chunin. They could track her down easily, and they were both faster and could run for longer than herself, and she was carrying a crying toddler in her arms too. Not to mention that she hadn't exactly escaped their initial confrontation without a scratch.

Still there wasn't much she could do except keep on running. If she got lucky, the Iwa-nin would decide that it wasn't worth the time to track her down, or she'd run into a Konoha-patrol before they caught up with her.

Her only saving grace really was a pathetic stealth-technique that she'd seemingly only managed to master because of her equally pathetic chakra-reserves. It was designed to hide her presence from chakra-sensors, but considering that she was carrying a toddler in her arms and running full-tilt without caring about leaving tracks, there wasn't much chance that that'd help.

There was no point in wasting time covering her tracks when any jounin worth their salt would see right through anything she could manage.

She was going to die, on a shitty mission in the middle of fuck-all nowhere, all because of her shitty luck to stumble across Iwa-nin at the worst moment.

Then again... the Iwa-nin were probably on a schedule. So if she could play keep-away for long enough, or make it obvious to their eyes that it'd take too long to hunt her down and kill her with the rest-...

What if-...?

Sakura let go of her chakra-suppression technique and instead flared it in a very distinct pattern. Konoha's emergency-signal, which was only ever really used to call in nearby patrols for aid.

There weren't any nearby patrols, and she'd given up what little stealth she could manage, but there was a chance that the jounin chasing after her wouldn't actually know that. She switched her direction slightly as if she'd spotted something, and then continued running roughly in the direction of 'towards Konoha'.

If she survived, great. If she didn't, at least she'd tried.

XXX

It was the second day of her run that she finally encountered a Konoha patrol, not that she'd really been expecting an enemy-pursuit after they'd failed to catch her within the first six hours.

She barely managed to report that there'd been jounin-level Iwa-nin before passing out.

By the time she woke up, they were nearly at Konoha's gates, the toddler looked to have been cleaned up somewhat, and someone had bandaged the scrapes that she hadn't bothered with.

Lack of an enemy-pursuit or not, Sakura hadn't wanted to risk stopping to bandage them on her own, too convinced that she'd simply keel over in a faint – and then die of hypothermia or something – the moment she slowed down.

When they finally arrived, she gave a much more detailed attempt at reporting the situation to the Hokage, who frowned sympathetically and didn't look all too pleased with Sakura's selfish decision to run away rather than die pointlessly.

Oh, he certainly mimed the right words of reassurance in regards to her having made the best choice considering the situation, but he looked disappointed in her lack of bullheaded determination to succeed despite the odds.

Sakura didn't particularly like the Hokage. He was kind of a pretentious asshole with his Will of Fire and the importance of one's teammates. Sakura hadn't even known her teammates' names, and neither had they known hers. There wasn't much point in learning things like that when they were all interchangeable genin as far as everyone else were concerned.

A Genin Corps member who tried to befriend their coworkers during work-hours was considered rude. If they became drinking-buddies outside of work, then fine. But friendships weren't really encouraged in any way in the Genin Corps, and placing the life of a teammate over the success of the mission was a good way to get excommunicated.

Sure, the Hokage's words might've rung true if Sakura had been part of a jounin-sensei's genin-team. Friendships in those tended to linger even when they'd been officially broken up due to promotions. But for a member of the Genin Corps who rarely if ever saw the same face twice at her work-place? It just wasn't feasible.

So, for the Hokage to direct that kind of disappointed look her way, as if she'd somehow screwed up by not dying with the rest of her temporary teammates? Sakura couldn't really bring herself to like the old man much.

She might hate to fail, she might hate the idea of ever surrendering. But more than anything else, she hated the idea that she should simply allow herself to get killed for _no goddamn reason_.

That didn't mean that she could be rude to her superior however, so she kept her face as blank as she could manage, and pretended as if she agreed with him.

It wasn't that hard. She'd been pretending to be nice to people she didn't like for years now. That was just good manners.

XXX

The biggest change in her schedule after barely escaping the rest of her team being massacred by enemy shinobi, was that her parents finally decided that Sakura obviously didn't understand what she wanted to do with her life.

To some extent, Sakura could understand where they were coming from. After all, civilians didn't encounter enemy shinobi and barely escape with their lives. They lived comfortable lives with some minor complications.

Then again, there was a certain toddler who would disagree with that statement.

Civilians encountered enemy shinobi just as often, and unlike actual shinobi, they generally didn't survive the experience.

For all that Sakura didn't really feel very charitable towards their Hokage, for all that she hated being stuck with the shitty missions that nobody else wanted, for all that she'd kept going out of sheer stubborn refusal to admit defeat. More than anything else, Sakura didn't want to become a victim.

If death was so inevitable, then she wanted to be able to at least do _something_ with her life before getting killed. Even if that was simply to alert the rest of the Village to the threat.

Her parents disagreed, and Sakura moved into the communal apartments of the Genin Corps.

It wasn't ideal, but at least she no longer had to listen to her parents whining about how they didn't raise her to be so foolish.

XXX

One of the main reasons that ANBU recruited so heavily from the Chunin Corps was the anonymity of it.

The genin with a jounin-sensei would participate in the international Chunin Exam in order to further Konoha's prestige and earn their own place in the ranks. Genin Corps members who advanced to chunin however, were always field-promoted.

After all, a genin with a jounin-sensei had a lot of opportunities to learn impressive techniques to intimidate opposing Villages and awe future clients. A genin from the Genin Corps would be lucky to figure out a handful of techniques in total, and that was just too pathetic for Konoha to risk showcasing their abilities to the rest of the world.

So whilst Sakura was certainly aware of the Chunin Exam that'd just kicked off, it wasn't the kind of awareness one had from something that concerned themselves.

Then again, her current mission involved three other genin and a chunin wandering around outside of the Forest of Death, just to make sure that none of the prospective future-chunin tried to cheat and dodge back out of the forest in order to recuperate in safety.

It was a C-Rank, and the only reason it was that high on the list was that their presence had actually been needed twice in the past. Twice, in all the many years that similar exams had been held. And during those two times, the full extent of excitement had been a statement of 'go back in there or get disqualified'.

They were really only there to prevent some clever genin from finding a useful loophole.

Still, as C-Ranks went, it wasn't a bad one. In the two months since Sakura's first disastrous one: she'd been flirted with by clients older than her father, ruined one of her favorite outfits beyond recovery by having a bandit spray blood all over it, ruined another outfit when a kid puked on her, and nearly broken her hand when she'd resorted to punching a bandit with a steel-helmet in the head.

Her hand had thankfully made a full recovery, and it'd mostly just been painful. Apparently her ceaseless training had born fruit on that front. She could now punch steel without completely disabling herself in the process. It just hurt like hell.

So, in comparison to Sakura's track-record with C-Ranks, this one was very much on the pleasant side. Wandering around in a mostly unpredictable way to keep anyone from dodging their patrols, and pretending like she was actually paying attention to her surroundings.

Oh, she _was_ paying attention to her surroundings. Her act came from that she was making sure that anyone who saw her believed that she was treating the situation like wandering around in an active war-zone. That way, even if they failed to detect anyone, their mere obvious hyper-vigilance would make even most chunin very hesitant about trying to dodge past them.

A good act was more important than actually paying attention. It literally said so in their mission-parameters.

Regardless, it was-...

"Something's coming-...!"

Red.

There was a dead chunin were there used to be a live chunin.

Sakura hadn't even had time to blink.

Another genin raised their kunai, and died.

There was a ninja among them, pale skin and bored expression, the Killing Intent was pressing down on her.

They didn't stand a chance. This wasn't-... Sakura ran.

The Forest of Death might have a horrible reputation, but she'd rather be eaten alive by tigers than sit around and wait for the enemy shinobi to murder her.

She wasn't even really aware of flaring her chakra in the emergency-signal until a kunai hit her in the shoulder when she was almost at the forest's edge.

The kunai hit her with enough force to knock her legs out from under her, and if its aim hadn't been slightly off, she would've died instantly. The emergency-signal stuttered and died as her body instinctively reacted to having the breath knocked out of her, and Sakura saw her chance.

Instantly clamping down on her chakra, as if there was suddenly no longer a living person lying by the forest's edge, Sakura kept her breathing as silent and unnoticeable as she could manage.

Faking death wasn't exactly covered in the Academy, but hopefully it'd prove useful against a shinobi who was likely on a time-schedule that hadn't been improved by Sakura flaring an emergency-signal whilst in the vague neighborhood of several elite jounin.

Sakura didn't want to die.

Even if that meant acting cowardly, even if it meant abandoning her teammates, she just really didn't want to die just because she got in the way of a jounin who decided that it'd be easier to go through her than around her.

She wasn't really sure of how long she remained there. It felt like hours, but that was unlikely.

"Ah, is this the one who made the signal? Too bad-..." Sakura sat up, and the voice stuttered to a halt. "Y-You're alive?"

Sakura turned around to see the stunned Konoha-nin behind her, wincing as she jostled the arm that didn't seem to be able to move under its own power. "Yeah." She agreed, her voice breaking slightly. "Gonna need a-... a medic though."

The shinobi who'd arrived blinked at her stupidly for a moment, before rushing to her side whilst shouting for a medic.

Still not the worst C-Rank she'd gone on. Definitely in the top five though.

XXX

Turns out, Orochimaru had infiltrated the Chunin Exam. As in, the S-Class missing-nin and former member of the Sannin, had infiltrated Konohagakure.

Four genin and one chunin. The chunin had been unfortunate enough to be good enough to detect Orochimaru's retreat but too weak to survive the man's attention, so he'd died first. Sakura hadn't been the only survivor this time though, since apparently Orochimaru had thought it more important to dodge the alerted patrols than it was to kill off two genin who were too terrified to move underneath his Killing Intent.

Sakura had saved two lives by faking her own death.

At this rate, Sakura found herself vaguely relived that nobody actually talked in the Genin Corps, otherwise she'd probably be forever remembered as 'that girl who ran away'. She wasn't ashamed of it, but she couldn't really bring herself to be much proud of her track-record beyond that she'd managed to survive it.

Thankfully, she wasn't actually going to have to deal with the security-checks of the aftermath, seeing as she was confined to the hospital. She could move her arm again. Kind of.

The medic-nin seemed convinced that she'd make a full recovery, but they'd also told her that if Orochimaru's kunai had hit her an inch differently in either directions then she'd probably have died. If not instantly from her spine being severed, then from blood-loss of her arm being more or less completely detached from the force of the blow.

Sakura hadn't found this commentary very reassuring, but medic-nin knew their stuff, and she was lucky to have moments of even limited cognition in between the pain-medication and the blinding pain of a whole lot of broken bones, so mostly she just didn't think about it too much.

It was easier to sleep like that.

XXX

A month later, she was out of the hospital.

Not back on duty, seeing as moving her arm too quickly still made her wince, and that her fingers on one hand were about as dextrous as if she'd gotten caught in a blizzard. It wasn't anything that could be cured better at a hospital than it could be cured at her own apartment, so they'd sent her home.

Thankfully, medic-leave was always paid for when it was even indirectly related to one's duties as a ninja, so she wasn't in any danger of losing hot water any time soon.

The final part of the Chunin Exam was also in mid-swing, but Sakura wasn't-... Even if they were technically her colleagues, she couldn't quite suppress the sting of jealousy at the thought of the genin with a jounin-sensei. She'd work together with them, she'd trust them at her back any day, and she'd defend them to the utmost of her abilities – and no further, because Sakura wasn't crazy enough to believe she could face down S-Class missing-nin in a fight, and she had no intention of dying pointlessly.

However, the idea of going to cheer them on? To watch the flashy techniques they'd learnt under the steady hand of a jounin-sensei? To listen as passionate ideals, that she couldn't care less about, clashed together?

Sakura knew she had a temper, just like she knew that she was probably too stubborn for her own good. And the idea of visiting that arena and watch as former classmates showed off how far they'd come since they'd passed their jounin-sensei's test where Sakura hadn't?

Her apartment was pretty easy to clean, but she liked her furniture whole and functional, rather than embedded into her apartment's walls.

So she was ignoring the Chunin Exam. She was in fact going so far as to treat herself to a nice cup of tea in her apartment, seeing as most everywhere else in the Village were buzzing with excitement about the whole thing.

A shinobi with a headband with a music-note on it appeared in her window, kunai raised as they smashed through the glass.

Sakura hurled her filled tea cup at his face, and then triggered the traps she'd set up on the window-sill whilst she threw herself behind the table.

Orochimaru had infiltrated Konohagakure in the middle of a Village-wide alert to keep on their toes. Sakura had watched two people die a mere couple of feet away from her on a routine mission.

She felt about as safe within Konoha's walls as the average hen in a fox-den. And she planned accordingly.

There was a noise a bit like a dry twig snapping, along with a distinctly wet sound. The scream of pain barely registered, as Sakura finally got her hands on her gear.

Leaping to her feet, she found a humanoid shape nailed to her ceiling with a dozen sharpened poles the size of her arm, and a second ninja dragging themselves up to her window.

She kicked the second ninja in the head. It felt a bit like kicking a melon. Hard, but mostly wet.

The same dull cracking-noise, the same wet sound, and then a lackluster thump of an unmoving body hitting pavement.

Glancing out through her window and ignoring the – _red red red_ – blood dripping down from the corpse nailed to her ceiling, Sakura tried to figure out what the hell was going on.

Turns out, they were being invaded.

"Fuck my life."

XXX

Survival in a war-zone largely came down to luck.

There was definitely a strategic element to the situation, but – beyond the strategic elements usually present in any kind of battle – that mostly landed itself under 'common sense'.

For example, if an enemy ninja waded through other ninja, you didn't charge straight at them and hope that they'd be spontaneously overwhelmed. Instead, you instantly went the other way in order to look for an allied ninja who waded through enemy ninja in a very similar manner, and then you pointed them in the direction you last saw the enemy ninja in question.

Sakura kind of lost count of the amount of traps she set off, and the amount of weaker ninja she helped dog-pile. She could however still perfectly recall the dozen-or-so near-misses she'd had with an enemy ninja way out of her league noticing her.

She wasn't exactly proud of using allied ninja's failed attempts to dog-pile an enemy in order to retreat safely, but in total she'd managed to aim something like thirty jounin-level allies at the elites of the enemy. Which had probably kept a lot of casualties down in the long-run.

Once a ninja reached a certain level, genin became about as effective at hindering their progress as particularly annoying flies. So, instead of dying pointlessly for the sake of perhaps distracting the enemy for a few moments, Sakura had gone and fetched the ones who could actually bring them down. And then traded for the genin-level enemies that they'd in turn previously been wading through.

There'd been a lot of fighting going on, and thankfully Konoha's genin outnumbered the genin of both Suna and Sound combined, meaning that they'd gotten a lot of effective use of Sakura's favorite tactic of ganging up on an enemy and hitting them until they died.

For all of its laughable simplicity, it'd been devastatingly effective.

XXX

The Hokage was dead, and apparently Sakura was the only survivor in the Genin Corps of her former classmates.

There'd been seven of them in total who hadn't resigned within the first six months. Out of thirty people, nine passed their jounin-sensei's test, fourteen decided to go civilian, and seven stuck with the Genin Corps. Well, one now, seeing as Sakura was the only one of them who'd managed to survive the invasion.

She only knew about there having still been classmates among the ranks because an ANBU-member had told her about it.

Turns out, invasions were hell on manpower. Which was why Sakura now had an invitation to join the infamous ranks of ANBU.

Their reasoning was a mixture of tactical know-how, dedication to training, her record of surviving her team getting in over their heads, and her actions during the invasion. She hadn't been the only one to approve of her tactic of aiming elite ninja at each other rather than waste her life trying to stop them.

Normally, ANBU would've probably only begun considering her after a field-promotion to chunin, but being as strapped for manpower as they were – and without an acting Hokage who'd prioritize the field-promotion of genin – they'd taken a look into the Genin Corps as well. And Sakura had fit the bill.

Should she pass their 'entrance exam', she would officially be field-promoted to chunin – for her 'distinguished actions during the invasion' and her 'excellent mission-record' – after having spent a total of six months in the Genin Corps.

Which was why Sakura was currently in the middle of watching an old man drown in his own puke. Assassination was the name of the game, and having the man drink himself to death had been as viable an option as any.

After all, it was supposed to look like an accident, not an actual assassination.

Just a tiny bit of paralytic in his drink, along with two pillows to prop his head up, and now all she needed to do was stand by and watch him drown. Which was taking a bit of time, but she'd anticipated as much and brought a book to distract herself with.

She was pretty sure her ANBU-escort were both exasperated and amused with her foresight on the matter, though it was hard to tell through the masks they wore.

XXX

Despite everything, being part of ANBU was surprisingly stress-free.

Sure, she killed people for a living, and sure her missions were an awful lot more dangerous than beating up a few bandits every now and then. But that was just it. Sakura always knew what to expect.

Not down to the specific details. But she generally knew if a target would have the money and inclination to hire bodyguards long before leaving Konoha, and she never really had to wait around for them to make the first move. She could make the first move whenever she wanted, as long as she'd investigated what she'd actually be getting into.

It was a bit like comparing keeping pace with someone with longer legs than herself, always having to awkwardly jog to keep up, and being allowed to set her own pace – even if it was even faster than the awkward half-jog.

She kind of liked it actually.

Yes she killed people for a living, yes she'd killed off civilians who were even younger than herself, yes she'd stabbed a man who was begging her to spare his grandson and then stabbed the grandson too. She wasn't exactly proud of it, but it was for the Village, and she'd found that she was actually rather fantastic at compartmentalizing the whole situation.

She wasn't exactly 'content', but then she couldn't really remember what that'd felt like. She hadn't felt like that since-... since somewhere around when she'd first met Ino.

She hadn't even thought about Ino at all for nearly seven months now, let alone Sasuke.

Sakura stared up at the ceiling thoughtfully, not particularly bothered by the businessman sobbing to himself in a corner as he bled out, and decided that she was actually kind of embarrassed about the whole Sasuke-situation.

She couldn't even recall what his face looked like, and she'd broken up her longest and only real friendship over him. Had he really been that pretty? Or had she just been even more stubbornly competitive back then than she was now?

Either way, it felt very much like the actions of a kid, and Sakura would rather not be associated with them at all. Not that she would be, considering how the only people who interacted with her these days were people behind masks. Personal history wasn't something ANBU-members investigated between each other.

Even if it wouldn't have been very hard to stalk one of her coworkers back to their house and reveal their identity that way, that kind of thing would've not only been borderline-treasonous, it would've also been breathtakingly rude. ANBU were faceless ninja without any history, to acknowledge otherwise was a bit like digging up blackmail-material on the Hokage. Not that Konoha actually had a new one of those yet.

The businessman's sobs finally stopped, and Sakura turned to watch the last bit of life leave his body. Then she was finished.

Target observed dead, target clearly the victim of an attack, and no traces of the one who'd actually done it. Now she just needed to get back to the Village without stumbling across the rest of the man's bodyguards.

Life was pretty okay, as far as Sakura was concerned.

XXX

About a week before Tsunade's official inauguration, Sakura was faced with the very real understanding that her time in ANBU meant extra-training.

Not just in new techniques and learning new things on missions as she went on them, or even the 'first hazing' she'd been put through upon her recruitment. ANBU required as close to perfect control of one's emotions as was physically possible.

Sakura wasn't overly fond of exactly how violent that bit of training could become, but considering some of ANBU's recruits came from ninja who'd had jounin-sensei, she could understand the need for it. ANBU wasn't a genin-team of friendships and ideals, it was a place of anonymity and duty.

Emotions were a distraction, and distractions got yourself and your coworkers killed.

At least it gave Sakura the incentive to finally stop fidgeting with her recently-cut hair. It'd been getting in the way, and she didn't regret it, but it was so weird to not have long hair anymore having had it for several years now.

Even if that incentive mainly came in the form of being punched hard enough to make her worry about losing teeth.

She was ANBU, she'd survive it.

XXX

Tsunade's inauguration brought with it a certain other thing as well.

Or rather, Sakura kind of stumbled across an old classmate whilst in the middle of wandering around aimlessly on one of her rare days off.

She wouldn't even really have noticed if the girl in question hadn't suddenly decided to run up to her, exclaiming about how cool it was that Sakura had reached chunin.

Sakura hadn't even really noticed that she wore her chunin-vest that day until that moment.

"You're the only one except for Shikamaru! Come on, let's celebrate!" Naruko grabbed her arm and started pulling. "I know just the place! They're the best!"

Sakura felt something weird settle in her stomach. Kind of like apprehension, kind of like relief, and kind of like she wanted to cry for some reason? Her eyes wouldn't move from watching the blonde drag her along, and Sakura couldn't really find the words to deny the girl's obvious cheer.

It felt weird, having someone touch you without intent to harm. Sakura couldn't remember the last time-... Maybe back when she'd still lived with her parents? Were they even alive after the invasion? Sakura hadn't ever actually gotten around to check on that. What the hell was wrong with her?

The rest of the day slipped by in a daze.

Naruko chattered brightly at her, apparently just _so happy_ to have someone to talk to that weren't her teammates. Her teammates being Sai and Sasuke, as in, a creepy weirdo and the gloomiest kid in the world. Her sensei wasn't much better, what with being habitually late, always reading porn in public, and just generally being an opportunistically sadistic asshole.

Naruko had a lot of opinions on her team. Most of them were at least a little bit hilarious to listen to, and even if Sakura wasn't a big fan of ramen normally Ichiraku's was nice though. Warm somehow.

She gave up on keeping up with Naruko's consumption of ramen almost immediately though, and ended up spending what must've been hours just listening to her talking about all of the crazy stuff her asshole-team got up to.

By the end of it, Sakura had nearly managed to get used to the way she kept relaxing whenever Naruko touched her. It was still a bit weird, but Naruko had a very nice smile, so it wasn't a 'bad' type of weird.

XXX

Her parents were alive. Their home had long-since been repaired of any damage it might've suffered. And Sakura would still rather watch a man drown in his own puke than listen to her mother badger her about how she ought to give up on being a ninja.

She didn't leave them an address to contact her at.

She wasn't stupid. If they needed to get in contact with her for something important, they could go through the mission-desk. The fact that the mission-desk would be more likely to laugh at her parents than actually forward general complaints about 'giving up on being a ninja' did indeed play a major part in that decision.

Ichiraku's without Naruko was a bit blander than she remembered, but it was nice enough.

And-...

Sakura took a deep breath and pretended like she wasn't breaking out in cold sweat.

And Sakura was currently being indoctrinated into a secret and technically-treasonous part of ANBU.

It'd been nearly a month, and Sakura had started getting oddly unsurprised about her training-regime. She'd been expecting almost everything they threw at her in fact, and it'd taken her looking up where in the world she'd heard _anything_ about ANBU training-regimes before she'd figured it out.

Despite common belief, Sakura would prefer a good book on history to a romance-novel, and whilst history was a very... subjective thing, when it came to ninja, there were certain parts that'd actually been recorded.

Things like the founding of Konoha, the founding of the other Villages, the founding of ANBU, and the disbanding of Root. It was the latter one that she recognized her training-regime from. As in, the book had briefly mentioned some of the horrible things Root-operatives were subjected to in the name of training 'perfect tools', in order to drive home why it'd been disbanded after the Third Shinobi War.

Sakura was too old to be trained as a proper operative, from what she could gather, but as a liaison within ANBU? As a trusted ANBU-operative capable of helping to cover up the movements of Root? She'd be perfect for it, if a little lower in rank than what could be hoped for.

So Sakura was basically committing treason.

Why did all this shit happen to her?

XXX

The problem with accidentally uncovering a treasonous organization within your own Village, was the fact that in order to properly expose it, your only real option was to talk to the Hokage.

For elite jounin, this wasn't much of an issue. Just tack it on a routine mission-briefing with the Hokage. It might take a little bit of time to get the opportunity to do so without rousing suspicion, possibly more time than what was really comfortable, but it could be done with very little fuss.

Sakura was a nobody.

Worse, she was a nobody who was likely being watched like a hawk by Root, just to make sure she didn't even consider doing what she needed to do.

Any genin could theoretically request to meet with the Hokage. They'd be turned down ninety-nine times out of a hundred, if they didn't present an at least halfway-decent reason behind it – the Hokage's time was quite valuable, after all – but they _could_ request it. Chunin generally landed themselves more along the lines of being turned down thirty times out of a hundred, but as long as they found a mission-report worthy of the Hokage's time they could do like the elite jounin and simply tack on a brief request to speak privately after they'd given the rest of their report.

Sakura's missions were ANBU-missions at best, and not-quite-Root at worst. She didn't report to _anyone_ in person. It was all done with perfectly innocent paperwork that could be easily misplaced by an organization within ANBU's ranks.

Sure, she was technically a chunin, but any request she made to speak with the Hokage would have to pass through a not-insubstantial amount of bureaucracy. Bureaucracy which would be tracked, and which always-paranoid Root would quickly be able to divine her intent through.

Best case scenario, upon requesting a meeting with the Hokage, she would have her request rejected and suddenly have no interaction with Root whatsoever. Worst case scenario, her request would be rejected, and she'd die in mysterious circumstances on a routine mission.

Considering that Root's leader risked execution for treason if Sakura ever revealed its existence – no matter how insubstantial her evidence might be – she was pretty damn sure that they wouldn't risk letting her live.

So not only did she have no evidence to back her up on her claim of treason within the Village, she had nobody to give it to either.

XXX

It was oddly difficult to worry when Naruko was right in front of her.

It wasn't really that Naruko was reassuring, because the blonde was mostly just blabbering on about her plans to strangle her teammates to death. Which was probably disproportionate to what they'd actually done, but watching Naruko wave her arms around in frustration was kind of hilarious, so Sakura wasn't going to call her out on it.

Mostly, it was difficult to worry when Naruko was there, because Naruko was ridiculous and adorable and far too loud to really allow the people around her to think.

Sakura had a vague recollection of her not having particularly appreciated that last bit back when they'd been classmates. It was hard to learn things when you weren't able to hear your own thoughts over the girl's noise.

Outside of a classroom though? In a stressful environment where Sakura was secretly and desperately fortifying her apartment to withstand a siege by her fellow Root-members for when they inevitably realized that she wanted to get away? Where she was potentially committing treason on any mission she was sent to, since she didn't know if it was an actual ANBU-mission or not?

Naruko's loudness was a blessing.

It didn't hurt that she actually managed to make her laugh. Sakura couldn't really remember the last time she'd laughed before Naruko. Probably back before graduation at least?

Though she could do without Ayame smiling knowingly at her whenever she showed up at Ichiraku's and Naruko wasn't there. Or the way Ayame would glance over at the two of them and then dart out of sight to hide her giggles.

Sakura was pretty sure she was the butt of some kind of joke, but hell if she knew what it was.

XXX

 **A/n: Originally, this was written with two requirements in mind. 1) To play around with Competent!Sakura, and 2) to have Competent!Sakura be separated from Team-7-shenanigans without "breaking apart" Team 7.**

 **I'd read too many fics where Team 7 gets thrown under the bus (no matter how awful of an environment I might agree that they present to Sakura's development), and too many fics where Team 7 sticks together like OT3-glue. So I wanted to play around with something that was neither of those for a little bit.**

 **This combined with a recent urge to write "something with Naruko in it", and thus was born Team 7 "the team of assholes". (Yes, Naruko is kind of included in that one. You don't get to be the prank-master by being sweet and innocent.)**


	2. Chapter 2

XXX

Squirrel's Luck: Chapter 2

XXX

Disclaimer: I still don't own anything.

XXX

Sakura was pretty sure that she was going to get killed off within the month.

She did her missions faithfully, she was being indoctrinated about the good of the Village without putting up a fuss, she trained harder than ever, and she'd just stolen one of Root's mission-records.

It'd taken her nearly a month after her realization of what was happening before she'd come up with a plan. The plan hadn't been very extensive, and had mostly consisted of the understanding that she needed proof of Root's activities before she could go around pointing fingers.

The thing was, because of how Root-missions needed to be able to pretend to be ANBU-missions, Root had as much bureaucracy as ANBU in general, and – just like ANBU – they had to store it somewhere. Once she'd figured out _where_ that somewhere was, all she'd needed to do was figure out how to break in without leaving any traces of a break-in.

Her first visit, she'd simply investigated the security-measures around the area. Her second visit, she'd taken notes of all of the fuuinjutsu involved. Her third visit, she broke into the records and took notes on the many details of Root's filing-system. Her fourth visit, she actually started going through the files.

Which was why she was currently leaving behind a copy of a file that said some very disturbing things about Sasuke's older brother.

As far as treason went, the file on the Uchiha-massacre was clearly pretty high up there, even if it was also more than half-a-decade old. It was perfect for showing how extensive and damaging Root's activities were, even if she was probably going to need something a bit more recent in order to properly drive home that Danzo-sama continued to be a treasonous scumbag.

However, she wasn't stupid enough to imagine that – no matter how extensively she'd fortified it – her Root coworkers wouldn't be inclined to search through her apartment, looking for incriminating things. So she couldn't exactly hold onto the file, and she couldn't dump it on the Hokage without her actions immediately being discovered – thus resulting in her immediate demise – so she was going to have to go to someone else with it.

The problem that presented itself was that it was next-to-impossible to guess who might or might not have ties to a secret organization until it was too late. And the only person she knew _for sure_ wasn't a Root-member, and whom she ever really talked to was Naruko. Naruko who wouldn't know subtle if it came at her with a sledge-hammer.

Then again... Naruko did have a jounin-sensei. One famous Sharingan-no-Kakashi, elite jounin and former ANBU. Former ANBU who'd – during their first and only meeting – smiled cheerfully at Sakura and asked about her 'squirreling away Naruko'.

Considering that Kakashi was rather infamous for his belief that 'those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash', and that Sakura had likely gained her ANBU-name of 'squirrel' because she had a tendency to run away and abandon her teammates in order to complete the mission?

Hatake Kakashi scared the hell out of Sakura.

Her only real saving grace in the man's eyes seemed to be that she really had no interest in Naruko professionally. Or rather, she clearly wasn't using the girl as a sneaky way of getting around her Genin Corps roots by piggy-backing off of the things that Naruko had learned from her jounin-sensei. Which Sakura was guessing had been the main reason for why the man had suddenly showed up unannounced at Ichiraku's that day.

Sakura wasn't sure what he could've actually decided to do about it if she _had_ been training with Naruko, but she was endlessly relieved that she hadn't been forced to find out. Not that 'training' had even really occurred to her as an option. Sakura just enjoyed eating ramen with her. And having her smile at her. And having her hug her. And-...

Sakura made a face and pushed those thoughts aside. No matter what Ayame had to say about it, she really didn't want to risk her friendship with Naruko over what was probably just hormones. She'd seen enough medical texts lately to know some of the signs of being touch-starved, and she'd been ticking a lot of the boxes for it. Naruko really was the only friend she had left.

Yet, despite all of that, Sakura couldn't think of anyone else to turn to. Even if Kakashi would be highly unlikely to simply let that slide.

Sakura knew Naruko enough to guess that not even the girl's jounin-sensei would be able to stop her from being friends with someone, but well-... Sakura was going to have to use her friendship with Naruko in order to deliver top secret and likely-lethal-to-be-associated-with documents to the Hokage – by way of Kakashi.

Had Kakashi had a less polarized reputation in regards to the safety of his teammates, he'd probably accept that Sakura was _really_ low on options – no matter how grudgingly – and that the safety of the Village was at stake. However, this was Hatake Kakashi, and Sakura was pretty sure he could phrase her 'reckless endangerment' of Naruko as enough reason for the Hokage to give her a restraining-order.

So... get herself killed because the files were found before she managed to grab something more currently-relevant than what she had so far. Or recklessly endanger Naruko, be forced to cut all contact with her only friend, put a stop to Danzo-sama's activities, and maybe survive for another year-or-so before her duties as an ANBU finally caught up to her and she died – painfully, alone and unmourned in a ditch somewhere.

It was... both a very easy choice and a not-at-all easy choice.

But then, if Sakura let herself get killed, and Naruko really became the Hokage one day, then Danzo-sama would still be there. Watching over Naruko's shoulder, twisting her orders however he pleased.

There was really only one option.

Not that that would make it hurt any less.

XXX

Kakashi wasn't feeling very charitable towards Naruko's newest friend.

It was one thing for the blonde to make friends by punching enemies in the face. That was the kind of thing that Iruka worried over, and Kakashi mostly ignored. Despite common belief, Naruko knew better than to think that friendships could remain uncontested in between Villages. It wouldn't stop her from making those friends, but there was a limit to how close she'd allow them to come.

Haruno Sakura on the other hand? She was an old classmate and technically a chunin of Konoha, so there should be nothing to worry about, right? Except, the girl had been the only survivor of her team during her first C-Rank, and her choice of survival had been to run very fast in the opposite direction as her teammates died behind her.

Kakashi might've been willing to let that slide. She'd been a civilian-born genin on her first violent mission, not everybody were cut out for the life of a ninja. However, instead of understanding that herself, she'd simply continued on with her missions, completely unaffected by the deaths of her teammates.

Kakashi hadn't really heard much about her, in all honesty, but everything he'd ever heard of his genin-team's old classmate reminded him an awful lot of the idea that shinobi should remain as nothing beyond tools for their Villages.

Then there'd been the incident during the Chunin Exams, where Orochimaru nearly wiped out a patrol. 'Nearly' because one of its members had sounded the alarm and then faked their own death, convincing the missing-nin that it wasn't worth sticking around to finish the job of murdering the rest of the team.

On the one hand, Kakashi could appreciate someone capable of keeping a calm head when up against an S-Class missing-nin on what should've been a completely routine mission. On the other hand, considering the girl in question, he was pretty sure that her successful plan had been more grounded in cowardice than actual planning. And again, she'd seemed wholly indifferent to the deaths of her teammates.

Still, Kakashi hadn't been forced to interact with the girl, so he hadn't done anything beyond keeping an absent ear to the ground in regards to her. Until he caught wind of a recruitment-pitch from ANBU after her actions during the invasion – which had again mostly amounted to running away from fights and hiding behind jounin.

It didn't take a genius to guess that they were horribly low on manpower, though Kakashi wondered if it wasn't something more sinister than that underneath it all.

Regardless, live and let live. He wasn't paid to go around and force his ideals down the throats of other people.

Except then she suddenly made friends with Naruko.

Uzumaki Naruko, the jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi, and Kakashi's own student. A possible Root-recruit reached out to make friends with the jinchuuriki of Konoha. And didn't that sound suspicious as all hell?

Sure, Sai technically fit that profile perfectly well himself, and Kakashi had allowed that to slide. However, no matter how much he acted like a Root-recruit with his social ineptitude and complete lack of common sense, Sai had been under careful watch by the Yamanaka for years now, and they seemed hopeful that he'd make a full recovery someday soon.

Kakashi personally believed that Sai would either recover from the trauma of that hostage-situation-gone-bad, or get killed by Sasuke. One or the other. Naruko would probably settle for just leaving him maimed and dying, Sasuke would go for the throat. Vicious little brat.

So, whilst Sai certainly fit the personality of a carefully conditioned Root-operative, Kakashi knew perfectly well that he wasn't one. The same couldn't be said for the girl who'd beaten the odds and landed herself not only in the Chunin Corps but in ANBU.

Which was why Kakashi had cheerfully bullied his way into meeting the girl, and left a very particularly-worded warning about approaching his students.

It'd been surprisingly satisfying to watch the girl pale. At least until Ayame-chan started dropping chili-peppers into his ramen, eyes narrowed in protective outrage.

Turns out, Sakura had gotten dragged into Ichiraku's by Naruko one day, and had looked so pathetically smitten by the blonde that Ayame had already been won over. The fact that she was now a regular customer, even if it was obvious that she wasn't actually there for their ramen – what with the silently pining expression she always wore – just made Ayame all the more protective.

Kakashi still wasn't entirely sure that Sakura wasn't simply using Naruko somehow, but he'd done his research, and... well-... He'd seen newlyweds who didn't light up as brightly as Sakura did whenever she spotted Naruko, not to mention the way she melted so wholeheartedly into Naruko's every casual touch.

It _was_ entirely possible that it was just a matter of hormones, but Kakashi just-... He had this feeling, and-... Considering Kakashi's many years as an active ninja, he'd learnt to trust his instincts, and his instincts said that Haruno Sakura was as smitten with Naruko as Maito Gai was smitten with Youth. As appalling as that parallel was.

Still, sometimes his instincts were wrong.

"She said that even if it didn't have jutsu on it or anything, she wasn't sure that I wouldn't find some way to light myself on fire with it." Naruko pouted.

Apparently, Sakura wanted Kakashi's opinion on some kind of genjutsu-theory that was vaguely related to the Sharingan. And of course she thought of her dear old friend who _just so happened_ to have a jounin-sensei with a Sharingan. How very lucky for her.

Now, he _could_ simply pass that on to Sasuke, but he'd much rather keep as many of his students away from the girl as he could manage. Not to mention that the girl had apparently sealed the whole thing tight with fuuinjutsu that was actually a bit more high-grade than what ANBU generally used for their paperwork, which wasn't anything to scoff at.

So either this hadn't been sealed by herself, and she was also trying to use him to open the document whose contents she was _mostly_ sure of but wanted to know the details of. Or she was using her – likely ANBU-acquired – skills with fuuinjutsu to try to impress him, in order to maybe convince him to help teach her something else.

Kakashi was dearly tempted to simply toss it in a garbage-can and be done with it, but Naruko was hovering, eyes filled with curiosity, so he resigned himself to pretending to read through it.

Unsealing the document with the casual ease of someone who were leagues beyond a fresh ANBU-recruit – book-smart or no – Kakashi glanced at the first few lines-...

This didn't look like genjutsu-theory. This looked like a mission-report? A pretty old one too, given the date. Was she trying to directly ask him for help with ANBU-work, _through his student_?

Kakashi hurriedly suppressed the spark of Killing Intent before Naruko could react to it.

But-... No, this was-...

Kakashi stared at the orders, at the date, at the one assigned to them, and at the signature.

Danzo had ordered Uchiha Itachi to commit the Uchiha-massacre, with the caveat that Uchiha Sasuke be spared as long as Itachi was the one who performed the massacre in question.

Where the hell had Sakura-...?

Oh, so she _was_ Root. Except-... Why in the hell was she giving him half-a-decade old files? Clearly treasonous and highly top-secret files? Was she-... Was she trying to bring Root down from the inside?

"Ah, Naruko-kun. What exactly did she say she wanted me to do?" He asked the blonde casually, carefully making sure that Naruko couldn't catch a glimpse of the document's contents.

Naruko rocked back on her heels, disappointed in Kakashi deciding not to share the contents, but answered nonetheless. "She said she was going to be stuck running a bunch of missions and wouldn't have time to get distracted by theory for like a month or something. So she wanted you to hold on to it until then."

Hold on to it. Right. Hold on to the incriminating evidence of Danzo's treasonous schemes.

Kakashi made a thoughtful hum. "Did she say something else?" Like why he shouldn't take this to the Hokage immediately? And then hunt her down and ask her a few pointed questions about where she might've gotten the idea to send _his student_ across the Village with documents that Danzo would happily kill someone for possessing?

Naruko frowned in thought. "Oh yeah, she thought that there might be something more recent written about it, and that she might be able to dig it up in the library or something."

More recent? Why would she need something more recent than-...? Ah, of course. This treason was enacted during the reign of the Sandaime, and so it wouldn't actually implicate Danzo for treason against the current Hokage, which meant that there was a slight chance that he'd be able to get off on a technicality.

And if Danzo wasn't immediately executed when Haruno Sakura brought his actions into the light, she was going to be killed in retaliation.

"I see." Kakashi carefully resealed the document and put it away – in a more secure position than even Icha Icha – and patted Naruko on the head. "I'll see what I can do."

Naruko bristled adorably at having her head patted, but honestly seemed mostly relieved.

A horrible thought occurred to Kakashi.

He'd been watching _Sakura_ whenever the two girls interacted. But what if-... What if the whole ridiculously-smitten thing was _mutual_?

Paling in a way that would've been blatantly noticeable without his mask to hide behind, Kakashi hurriedly discarded that train of thought before he landed himself with a stress-induced heart-attack.

XXX

If Sakura ever found the person in charge of Root's filing system, she wasn't sure whether to applaud them or strangle them to death.

She'd managed to find the first mission-archive by cross-referencing the various areas of the Village with what was 'officially' there.

Honestly, she'd been pretty damn smug about it too. It'd only been her third attempt at finding an archive, and she'd not only found a very well-recorded archive, but actual proof of the unlawful execution of Konoha's citizens – the claim of a brewing coup were largely irrelevant, seeing as Danzo hadn't had the authority to make the call that he did.

Unfortunately, as Sakura continued her search for something more recent than half-a-decade-ago, she came to the conclusion that she'd simply gotten ridiculously lucky.

It wasn't exactly hard to locate a mission-archive for Root. The problem mostly arose in that Root had been very carefully hiding its operations since the time around the Yondaime's inauguration. And that Konoha had suffered through an awful lot of destruction since then.

There seemed to be damn-near endless amounts of the damn places, but they were either clearly abandoned or destroyed or so horribly out-of-date that there wasn't even any point in looking for specific files in them.

The whole thing made what Sakura had assumed to be a tedious but rewarding task, into some of the most frustrating days of Sakura's life.

There were certain things that they needed in order to have the documents adequately protected, and damp underground tunnels weren't part of it. There also tended to be some kind of security, so nothing close enough to civilians that they'd manage to get themselves accidentally killed on the automatic security-systems, and nothing too close to shinobi housing in case they were observant enough to note the inexplicable shinobi-traffic into the archive.

Sure, to some extent, the shinobi of Konoha would look the other way in most cases, certain in their knowledge that it was probably just ANBU being super-secret as usual. But – for an organization like Root – that wasn't something that could ever truly be _counted_ on, and Sakura had a long list of the actual ANBU-locations around Konoha to compare those spots to.

Admittedly, she wasn't _supposed_ to have one of those, but taking the initiative to steal it for herself had proven invaluable. It also hadn't been nearly as impossible as the ANBU-commanders wanted everyone to think, even if Sakura had the semi-unfair advantage of already having access to most of the ANBU-facilities they'd been hidden in because of her job. They'd hidden clues to one place in another place, and so on. It'd been a bit like a treasure-hunt, only with the certain knowledge that at any moment she could slip up and be instantly executed for 'endangering the safety of the Village'.

A bit ironic, considering.

However, with the list of ANBU-sites across the Village, along with the official shinobi-areas, along with some interesting housing-records that she might've copied illegally from a few of the bigger land-owners of the Village, cross-referencing the whole lot of them with the criteria necessary in order to find Root's mission-archives wasn't difficult.

Finding them was tedious and required actually knowing what you were looking for, but she'd had assassination-targets that'd been better at hiding. Though that was mainly because humans kind of all looked very much alike when it came down to it, and it was hard to keep track of a full city worth of them. It was actually breaking into the archives that was difficult. And lethally dangerous.

It'd taken her slightly over a full month since the time when she'd first copied the file on the Uchiha-massacre. A bit longer than she'd hoped it'd be when she'd first told Naruko that her mission-log would be getting a too busy to talk much, but she finally had it.

Or, she was pretty sure she had it anyway. It was hard to tell if sabotaging the peace-efforts between Suna and Konoha in a way that made Suna even more desperate for aid was a good or bad thing.

Technically still very much treasonous, seeing as Tsunade had quickly gone in and stamped out a peace-treaty upon donning the Hat. A peace-treaty that Danzo was acting in violation of, even if – unlike with the massacre – Konoha wasn't directly harmed by his actions. Their _allies_ were harmed, but Suna had kind of screwed themselves over on the whole sympathy-front with their recent invasion, even if they'd been misled by a missing-nin impersonating their Kage.

Now all she needed to do was talk with Hatake Kakashi without having him stab her to death over using Naruko to deliver highly dangerous documents into his hands for safe-keeping.

Honestly, Sakura was pretty sure that Kakashi actually scared her more than Danzo did at this point.

XXX

Naruko hadn't really been very happy with her team-placement.

Sure, she knew that she was likely the envy of basically every kunoichi in their class, considering how she'd ended up on a team with pretty-pretty Sasuke, but Naruko wasn't every kunoichi in her class.

Sasuke was always frowning about something, was more likely to kick someone whilst they were down than he was to offer a compliment, and he was annoyingly talented at _everything_.

Naruko could admit to being envious of it. Both over the ease with which he seemed to be able to grasp everything anyone taught him, as well as the way everyone fawned over him. She'd grown up alone, and it always rubbed her the wrong way to watch Sasuke turn his back on the kindness that the people around him offered him, time and again.

Then there'd been Sai, who was just as likely to lie blatantly to her face as he was to tell the completely unvarnished truth. There was no in-between, and there were no tells for whether he was lying or speaking the truth, because he always looked just as falsely cheerful either way.

Naruko would've given up on Ichiraku's for a month if they'd been allowed to switch Sai out with Shino. At least Shino didn't go out of his way to provoke people, creepy bugs or no.

So okay, Sai was messed up in the head because he'd watched his entire family get systematically killed in a hostage-situation with bandits, and Sasuke had been tortured by his ultra-crazy brother with the murders of everyone he loved. In time, Naruko had learned to live with the quirks of her two teammates, just as she was grudgingly convinced that they'd learned to live with hers.

That didn't make it any easier to be on a team of complete assholes though.

Kakashi-sensei didn't make it better. If anything, the cheerfully sadistic man made it worse at least half the time. The other half was awkwardly divided between moments where he simply distracted them for long enough that arguments faded away, and times where he pretended they were all simply very loud and rude pieces of shrubbery.

This combination meant that when Naruko had spotted a head of familiarly pink hair after being stuck on the road with Ero-sennin for a month, she'd kind of ended up making a beeline for it.

Sakura could be kind of rude, and her arguments with Ino were legendary, but Naruko hadn't seen her around for ages. Also, worst-case scenario, she pulled an Ino and spent the better part of an hour trying to interrogate Naruko on whether or not she'd seen Sasuke shirtless. Which-... Honestly, Naruko wouldn't have minded being interrogated like that again, she had a feeling that Sasuke would be furious with her if she went on to describe – read, lie her ass off about – what Sasuke looked like naked.

Naruko had been very much up for making Sasuke furious that day.

However, from the moment Naruko managed to wave the girl down, her plans had been kind of derailed.

First off, at some point Sakura had had a haircut so Naruko had been distracted from her plans of oncoming-naked-Sasuke-interrogation by complimenting her on that. And on her promotion to chunin – which was apparently a thing with people in the Genin Corps, which was super-unfair because Naruko could _totally_ have been a chunin if the tournament hadn't gone and gotten itself canceled because of the invasion. Then they'd ended up in front of Ichiraku's and Naruko had happily explained just how wonderful ramen was – she'd held the speech many a times before, but usually people just nodded politely without listening, so Sakura actually paying attention to it kind of threw Naruko for a loop.

In the end, she'd kind of just stumbled blindly ahead in leading the conversation and ended up complaining a lot about her teammates and Kakashi-sensei, and Sakura had _listened_.

It'd been a pretty fantastic day all around, and Naruko would've happily declared Sakura as a good friend based purely on that. That hadn't been the end of it though.

Sakura had kept showing up at Ichiraku's to the point where Ayame would sometimes joke that they'd managed to land a 'new best customer' – which admittedly the sneaky girl was probably using purely as a challenge to get Naruko to eat even more ramen, because Ayame was amazing at marketing. And seeing as Naruko and Sakura were both now showing up at Ichiraku's whenever they had the time for it, they talked even more.

Sakura listened when Naruko said something, offered advice when she asked for it, leaned into all of Naruko's touches in a way that make Naruko's stomach go all tingly, and kept on gracing Naruko with the prettiest smile she'd ever seen.

Really, spending time with Sakura was amazing. She was a _great_ friend.

Which was why, the first time Sakura had ever asked her for a favor, clearly reluctant to ask and with something like desperate worry in her eyes, Naruko had immediately agreed.

She hadn't really appreciated the whole 'set herself on fire'-comment, but her loudly offended reaction to it had teased a smile out of Sakura despite everything, so Naruko wasn't going to hold a grudge about it. She wasn't really sure why Sakura wanted Kakashi's opinion on something, but she obviously thought that it was important.

Kakashi hadn't looked all too happy with being handed something to read that wasn't Icha Icha, even if he'd agreed easily enough, and Naruko had been endlessly relieved.

True to her words about 'a month full of missions', Naruko didn't see a lot of her at Ichiraku's, and whenever she _did_ see her, she looked more than a little ragged. As if she hadn't gotten enough sleep, or as if she'd very much _like_ to sleep – for at least a week straight.

It'd worried Naruko a bit, because from what little she'd managed to gather about Sakura's own missions she didn't really have permanent teammates. As in, teammates who'd know to look after her at all times. And if only Sakura was looking after Sakura, then clearly she needed to take better care of herself before she slipped and cracked her head open or something.

Still, about a month later, Sakura stumbled into Ichiraku's with an easy smile and something in between satisfaction and panic in her eyes.

She'd apparently also found something more recent than what she'd given Kakashi – though Naruko wondered when she would've had the time to look for that, when she'd clearly not had any spare time lately.

Which left Naruko with the awkward feeling of having to drag her to Kakashi, because he'd cheerfully insisted – about a week after Naruko had first delivered the papers – that Naruko do exactly that the moment Sakura showed up with something more recent. According to him, it'd all sounded incomplete enough that he'd wanted to discuss it directly with her.

Naruko supposed that she could've simply lead the girl, but Sakura had looked worried before and Kakashi seemed to think it was important, so pulling her along by her hand it was.

Sakura blinked stupidly at their joined hands for a moment, and Naruko pretended not to blush. She liked to touch people, and Sakura was nicer to touch than most, her hands soft and calloused and warm all at once, but the key with these kinds of things was to not make a big deal out of it. It was normal for two friends to hold hands, right? Right. Konoha's streets were pretty busy after all, and Naruko wouldn't want Sakura to end up getting lost.

Sakura either didn't mind it, or decided not to comment anyway, and followed her with a smile that felt a little bit more real. More like Sakura's usual smiles, than the weird things Sai did to his face in order to bare his teeth at people.

Kakashi was probably at the memorial again. He usually was. Or if he wasn't, he'd be close enough to the area that he'd spot the two of them coming.

Sakura had only met Kakashi the one time, back when Naruko had introduced her team to her. It'd been weird how Sakura had barely even seemed to notice Sasuke. Satisfying to the point of Naruko giggling herself to sleep that night, but weird.

Her reaction to Kakashi-sensei had been a bit weirder though. Mainly because of how very stiff she got about it. Almost as if she thought that Kakashi-sensei – annoying asshole that he was – was scary. If Naruko hadn't actually seen Kakashi beat up enemy ninja, she would've considered the mere thought ridiculous, but she had, and perhaps Kakashi-sensei's was secretly famous even inside of Konoha.

Either way, she didn't look horribly opposed to talking to the man, so Naruko wouldn't have to pick a side, which was nice. She liked Kakashi-sensei, for all that he was an asshole. And she wasn't sure if she wanted to figure out if she liked Kakashi-sensei or Sakura more.

"Ah. You're alive then." Kakashi put away his book as he spotted them, looking unusually serious. "Let's go."

Sakura's breath hitched, and she glanced towards Naruko, clearly torn.

Naruko had no idea what was going on, but it was making her nervous.

Kakashi nodded, an appraising eye on Sakura all the while. "I think Tsunade-sama has a specific mission for us, Naruko. Come along now."

If Naruko looked even half as confused as she felt, she really hoped that nobody had a camera readily available. She was the one who was supposed to confuse _other people_ , not have other people confusing _her_. This was all very unfair.

XXX

Sakura wasn't entirely sure what to expect from the Godaime Hokage.

The Sandaime and herself hadn't exactly been on good terms, and the Godaime had been his student back in the day. But at the same time, this time around Sakura came bearing important news of treason in the ranks, rather than returning to report that her entire team had died and that she'd ran away rather than die with them. First impressions were very much a thing.

She also knew that she'd endangered Naruko in the process of uncovering the aforementioned treason, and from what she'd heard about Naruko's missions, the other girl had been a large part of Tsunade-sama's reason for returning to Konoha. In other words, there was a big chance that some degree of bias would be present when the Godaime heard about the endangerment-part.

Kakashi seemed to be willing to let it slide for the moment, though whether that was because he'd accepted it or because he was going to be prioritizing dealing with Danzo to ripping Sakura to shreds? In the end, Sakura would still be around once Danzo had been dealt with, so Kakashi would be able to take his time on that front.

The question was how quickly Tsunade would be able to deal with Danzo, and whether or not she'd prioritize the events in the same order as Kakashi. Sakura was pretty sure that the Hokage would want to deal with the treason first, but well... that's where the whole 'bias' came in.

Sakura also didn't have a clue as to how Naruko might react to the big reveal. It wasn't like she'd ever even told her about being ANBU in the first place, let alone being part of Root.

Not that it mattered in the end. Her decision had been made, now she had to live with the consequences of it. That was all there was to it.

She pretended not to notice the way something in her chest clenched whenever Naruko sent a confused glance her way. This wasn't the time for regrets. She'd have plenty of time to feel regret later, when Ayame frowned at her, when Naruko wouldn't greet her with a smile, when-...

Right now, she had a mission to do. That was all there was to it.

XXX

Kakashi waited silently for Tsunade to finish reading, keeping a careful eye on the way Naruko fidgeted.

"Why?" Tsunade finally put down the papers, frowning at the girl standing in front of her desk. "Konoha has survived his meddling so far. Why would you risk it?"

Sakura twitched. "I will have no part in treason, Hokage-sama."

Tsunade tilted her head. "You're a clever girl, Haruno. He would've let you slip away if you'd kept your head down." Her eyes flickered to Kakashi. "It wouldn't be the first time a recruit has stepped out of his influence."

Sakura's lips thinned. "It's still treason."

Tsunade nodded. "It is. But considering your record, this willingness to risk your life over something that isn't an immediate emergency is a bit out of character for you."

Naruko almost looked like she was watching a tennis-match, glancing between the two of them with a worried expression on her face. Kakashi's hand remained firmly on the blonde's shoulder, keeping her out of the discussion.

Sakura met the Hokage's eyes for a long moment, her fists clenching, before she forced out her actual reason through gritted teeth. "Through the Yondaime's, the Sandaime's, and now the Godaime's reign, he's warped your orders and committed treason. He won't stop." She took a breath, her eyes very carefully not flickering towards Naruko. "Not even when Na-... when the Rokudaime takes the Hat."

Tsunade's eyebrows started to climb, Kakashi felt his jaw get a little slack, and Naruko made a weird and barely audible noise.

There was a brief moment as he processed that, and then with a silent sigh, Kakashi felt his shoulders slump. She really didn't make it easy to be suspicious of her motives, did she? Sure, it might've been a masterfully crafted piece of acting, but Kakashi had seen undercover-specialists in their natural environment too many times to classify that as a likely explanation.

Sakura honestly had done it because of exactly that reason. She'd risked death, whether by assassination or execution, and worked herself to the bone. All in order to make sure that Danzo's Root wouldn't be around when the girl she loved became Hokage.

It just wasn't fair. Kakashi was supposed to be able to scare off everyone trying to seduce his cutest student – she was the only one who smiled in a way that didn't give him the creeps, therefore she was by definition the cutest one of them. Naruko was way too young for Kakashi to be forced to give his grudging consent to someone dating her. Sakura should've at least waited with falling in love until Naruko hit her mid-thirties or something.

Tsunade pinched the bridge of her nose, looking annoyed, despite the smile twitching weakly at the edge of her lips. "Of course you'd say that. Why did I expect anything else?"

Naruko made another barely audible noise, and from how red her ears were, Kakashi was pretty sure she was now blushing rather substantially. Sakura certainly was.

XXX

For all that Danzo was on trial for treason, the man was suspiciously calm about having the supposed 'clan meeting' turn into such.

Sakura wasn't sure if it meant that he had something up his sleeve, or if he truly believed that he'd get away with a slap on the wrist. If it was the latter, he clearly needed to update Tsunade-sama's psyche-profile. The woman might not have been very interested in taking up the Hat in the first place, but from what Sakura had gathered she'd always been dedicated to it – despite her break from the Village in order to attempt to drink herself to death.

Still, it wasn't like they would've been able to hunt down the individual members of Root to stand trial along with him, even if they'd been inclined to properly apprehend him before his trial, so Sakura's immediate guess was that he'd long since set up plans to be rescued should he ever be found guilty of treason.

It was a bit strange, even now, to respond when the Hokage referred to her as 'Operative Squirrel' rather than 'Haruno Sakura'. But an ANBU-member was more trust-worthy than a pink-haired little girl who'd been an official ninja for less than a year. It was simple politics.

Not that it stopped a shiver of unease from making its way down her spine at the look in Danzo's single eye.

If she'd ever doubted that Danzo was planning on killing her for betraying him to the Hokage, she could now discard those doubts without question. He was definitely the type to hold a grudge.

The Clan Heads were gathered around, listening intently to her descriptions of what she'd found during her investigation. Of the many records about 'acquisitions' that coincided disturbingly well with children disappearing from their own clans, as well as the two documents that she'd brought before the Hokage.

She apologized to the Clan Heads for her decision to leave the reports of 'acquisitions' where she'd found them. Even if she still believed that she'd made the correct call in not trying to steal away every piece of evidence she could carry, she'd left the well-being of the clans as a distant second priority to bringing evidence of treason against Danzo. There'd be those among the Clan Heads who'd be more interested in gutting Danzo for that evidence than anything related to his many acts of treason, and it was to those she now apologized with carefully structured calm and contriteness.

Family was important to the clans of Konoha, and so she apologized, because it was fully possible that Danzo had set it up so that all of those records would be destroyed once Root discovered that he'd been found guilty.

She had no evidence of the existence of those records beyond her word, and she was a ninja, so her word was always in doubt. That she was ANBU and apparently loyal to the Hokage to a fault was a point in her favor, but it was nonetheless unlikely that she'd be believed out of hand.

Then it was Kakashi's turn to speak. And-... apparently he'd been Root once? That... certainly explained a few things, didn't it?

He'd been high-profile enough that Danzo hadn't dared to come after him once he'd made his own allegiances clear, but he'd also lacked the evidence to do anything about it.

Sakura was impressed. Not just with the understanding of exactly how dangerous it was to break off from Root, but also at Kakashi's clear ability to play an audience.

She'd spoken of her ruthless decision to acquire the records that would allow the Hat to bring him down, and a few of the gathered members had nodded along in understanding. Kakashi then came in and explained the complete inability to do anything at all about it, if she hadn't made the decision she had, from his own history with the organization.

He was good. Sakura made a mental note to never ever do anything that'd give Kakashi a reason to give witness against her. She'd die. She'd seriously die.

Naruko was fidgeting next to Tsunade-sama, having gained access to the trial on behalf of her having played messenger since Sakura hadn't been able to contact Kakashi directly. Sakura didn't have a clue what she was thinking about, but then – despite the girl's bright cheer and warm smile – she could be surprisingly good at avoiding certain topics.

Hopefully, when all was said and done, Naruko wouldn't-... Sakura hoped that at least they'd still be able to be friends.

XXX

Naruko wasn't an idiot.

She could be a bit slow on the uptake here and there, and she didn't always think like most other people around her. But she wasn't an idiot.

Sakura had decided to risk her life in order to expose Root, because Naruko wanted to be Hokage, and Sakura didn't want Danzo to be around when she took the Hat.

It was... strange, to have someone else look at her and-... and _believe_ that she'd actually be able to become Hokage one day. Iruka had himself been lonely enough that he understood why she'd shout her dream from the rooftops, Kakashi would smile with bittersweet nostalgia and pat her on the head, and Tsunade-... Honestly, Naruko didn't really have a clue what Tsunade thought about her dream beyond that first time when she'd called it a death-wish. She seemed better now, less hurt and bitter, so she probably approved in her own way.

But people didn't really _believe_ when Naruko told them about her dream. They didn't-... They sure as hell didn't base important life-threatening decisions on whether or not it'd be a danger to her 'when' she took the Hat.

There hadn't been an 'if' in Sakura's speech. A 'when', yes, and who knew how far into the future Sakura was looking then, but never an 'if'.

Then it turned out that Sakura was ANBU. And Naruko got to watch Sakura put on her mask.

Naruko wasn't entirely sure why her mouth had suddenly turned dry, or why it was suddenly so difficult to look away from Sakura's straight back. Also, why it was so strange to actually look at the girl.

She barely paid any attention at all in the trial. Too busy alternating between staring very intently at Sakura and very deliberately glancing around at anything else. Mainly because she felt like if she watched 'Squirrel' for too long, she'd be seriously tempted to break off from standing by Tsunade and pull off Sakura's mask.

The thought of it made her fingertips tingle awkwardly, and her mouth was still dry, and _why did she keep noticing how tight Sakura's pants were_?

XXX

Ah. So that was his plan.

Danzo frowned in a vague approximation of parental disapproval – Sakura's mom was better at it – as he revealed Squirrel's identity of Haruno Sakura to their audience. Which was very much illegal outside of the Hokage's explicit permission, but Danzo was on trial for treason, and he had no reason to hold back. A petty kind of rudeness.

Or, it would've been, if Sakura hadn't been a chief-witness and far too young and inexperienced for her word to hold a lot of water.

Her word against his. The word of a pink-haired little girl of a genin whose mission-record consisted either of D-Ranks or of abandoning her teammates for the sake of her own survival.

Apparently, she was using her accusations against Danzo as a way to advance her own career. And what else could be expected from a girl who had no loyalty to her fellow ninja?

Considering how that kind of attitude had been praised as the only attitude worth its salt in Danzo's Root, Sakura had to admit that there was a certain degree of irony of having it turned against her.

However, their audience were the Clan Heads, and their time as genin would've been spent under a jounin-sensei preaching the Will of Fire. No matter how strange it was to hear condemnation for her actions from Danzo, his audience wouldn't be able to dismiss his arguments from their own emotional bias.

Oh, Sakura still had the documents she'd managed to secure. But those could've been falsified. Her score in academics had been second-to-none after all, so a bit of forgery was simply to be expected. She'd certainly spent enough time in the library to pick up the techniques for it.

Hopefully, Tsunade would have Danzo executed regardless, even if this ended up blowing up in Sakura's face and forever ruining her career. She might be able to survive civilian life if Danzo wasn't around to arrange for an accident, as long as the rest of Root were far enough removed from their emotions that they didn't think to avenge his death.

Obviously, if the Hokage had her removed from service, she'd probably get stuck with a restraining-order in regards to Naruko as well. Which would mean that she wouldn't be able to go to Ichiraku's anymore.

With the Hokage's small nod as permission, Sakura closed her eyes against the pain in her chest, and removed her mask.

"My mission-record is a matter of public record." She said simply. "Up until ANBU approached me for recruitment due to a lack of manpower in the wake of the Invasion."

There was no real point in looking at her audience. They were veteran ninja to the last, and had long since learnt to conceal their thoughts on her identity.

Sakura kept her eyes fixed straight ahead. "I'm not certain to what extent Danzo-sama influenced their decision to recruit me. However, the last time an ANBU-member was recruited at my age was Uchiha Itachi, and I believe the Sandaime left certain regulations in the wake of the incident that was the Uchiha Massacre. Regulations that I doubt ANBU as a whole would've gone against without some kind of outside-interference."

Danzo opened his mouth, but was interrupted by a gesture from the Hokage.

"Revealing the identity of an active ANBU-member is a crime with a possible death-sentence attached." Tsunade hummed thoughtfully. "As this is a trial for treason where execution is already on the table, I suppose I shall not judge your willingness to reveal sensitive information for the sake of your own survival too harshly."

There were a few glances exchanged in the audience, and Sakura was pretty sure that Tsunade had just pushed Danzo down to the same level he'd dragged Sakura.

"As for the mission-record of Haruno Sakura, I must admit that I looked it up myself when she came to me with this information." Tsunade pulled up a collection of papers and started leafing through them. "Ah, here we go. Her first C-Rank. A failed mission with a total of two survivors after the caravan her team had been sent to protect managed to stumble across several jounin-class Iwa-nin. The survivors were Haruno Sakura and the civilian child she'd managed to grab in her escape." Tsunade paused, frowning slightly. "She was chastised by the Sandaime for abandoning her teammates, which really goes to show that sensei had lost touch with what being a member of the Genin Corps means in his old age."

Tsunade continued digging through her papers for a while, frown still in place. The rest of the room held its breath.

"Medic-nin aren't often _recruited_ from the Genin Corps, but they certainly work with them often enough to see some bleed-over in culture." Tsunade sneered at her papers. "There's no such thing as 'teammates' in the Genin Corps. There are coworkers. Sometimes you're lucky enough to learn their names before you land yourself out on the field, but most of the time you won't have learned it even at the end of the mission." She shook her head and discarded that particular report and sent a glance towards Sakura. "Being scolded by the Hokage for not committing suicide-by-ninja on your first actual mission? I'm honestly surprised that you didn't quit."

Sakura blinked, a little bit thrown. But from Tsunade's steady gaze, she actually wanted a response. "I-... I did have a falling-out with my parents over it, Tsunade-sama. The words 'stubborn' and 'sore loser' were used frequently."

Tsunade's lips twitched, a spark of hidden amusement flickering in her eyes. "I see." She went back to digging through her papers. "Ah, the second interesting report. A boring patrol-mission that caught Orochimaru's attention during his infiltration of the Chunin Exam. Five members, three survivors." Tsunade raised a theatrical eyebrow at the report. "The other two survivors reported being unable to move due to the Killing Intent, and yet you almost made it into the Forest of Death whilst flashing an emergency-signal. Explain."

Sakura frowned as she tried to remember exactly what'd been going through her mind in those brief moments. "He was running from something, Tsunade-sama. So I ran towards it." She paused, feeling a little bit uncomfortable. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

Tsunade nodded, that same small twitch of her lips. "And the emergency-signal?"

"I'm good with chakra-control, Tsunade-sama." – _And the Genin Corps was a place for cannon-fodder whose only hope of survival was to be able to call for help when they needed to_. She didn't say. It'd seemed like a sensible thing to learn. To learn it and to practice it to the point of instinctively using it when she needed to.

There was another brief nod, and Tsunade turned her attention back to her papers. "During the actual Invasion, there are multiple accounts from several sources of a certain pink-haired genin trying to defend various retreating civilians from enemy ninja. Despite being outnumbered and outmatched. This on top of the fact that the hospital hadn't yet cleared you for active duty." She sighed, glancing up at her. "If I'd read all of this before meeting you, Haruno Sakura, I would've signed you up for a psyche-evaluation. This reads very much like the mission-record of a genin who doesn't have anything left to live for."

Naruko made a startled noise, but Sakura felt herself bristling. She'd never been like that, she'd-... She'd had Naruko.

Sakura's face lost more than a bit of color, because that was-... her parents were alive, but she'd only bothered to remember checking up on them because Naruko had reminded her that-... Naruko had reminded her that life still mattered. She'd been-... Sakura actually had been suicidal. Not actively, not trying to kill herself, but simply no longer seeing any point with her own survival at all.

She could've really gone without that realization in the middle of a public room where she was risking her life to have a traitor convicted for his actions.

"Of course, I _did_ meet you in person before reading your files, so that was a bit of a moot point." Tsunade met her eyes, something like understanding and sympathy and wry fondness. "It's not the first time she's managed to change someone's outlook on life."

All the color that'd drained from her face came rushing back with a vengeance. And Sakura very pointedly didn't allow herself to glance at Naruko. It was bad enough that the Hokage had figured it out, let alone that she'd brought it up before the entire council of the Clan Heads. No need to make it even more obvious what she was talking about.

She really needed to ask Ayame for advice on how to pretend to _not_ be smitten with her best friend. This was starting to get ridiculous.

XXX

They'd all expected Danzo to pull some kind of trick from his sleeves.

Ignoring the way that he'd revealed Sakura's identity and used her reputation to endanger the validity of her testimony, Danzo had an army of fanatically loyal ninja at his beck and call. The idea that he wouldn't use them when faced with his own execution was absurd.

Tsunade had lured him into his own trial by simply calling in the full council for an important-but-classified meeting, and Danzo hadn't seen any reason to stay out of it. After all, the one who'd met with the Hokage right before she called the meeting had been _Kakashi_ , and he had no reason to connect the man's talk with the Hokage as in any way being related to Root.

If _Sakura's_ name had been the one used to hold a meeting with Tsunade, things would likely have been very different. However, with Kakashi at least temporarily on her side of things, there'd been no need to try for such desperate measures.

Once Danzo's attempts at diplomacy failed, everyone had agreed that he would definitely attempt to use military means to achieve his freedom. The surprise was that Danzo had somehow managed to get a message out to Root about the situation mid-trial.

Having also paid careful attention to the vulnerable emotional attachments of his opponents, Danzo's first decisive strike was a hostage-situation. With Naruko as the hostage.

Contrary to his withering appearance, Danzo was unsettlingly tough for an old guy.

Not that that really stopped Naruko from replacing herself with a Kage Bunshin, or Tsunade from nearly punch a hole straight through his head, or Kakashi from cutting off the man's arm with a fistful of lightning.

Sakura was a bit too busy trying to survive the chaotic mess that was two dozen Root-operatives clashing with the Clan Heads. A task that wasn't helped by the fact that at least half of those Root-operatives had decided to single her out as the one most mission-critical to eliminate.

Honestly, she kind of lost track of a whole lot of what was happening.

Naruko's blood-stained face scowling down at an enemy that'd nearly gotten Sakura in the back, Naruko's long blonde hair flashing past her peripheral like a banner, Naruko blinking stunned as Sakura caved in an enemy's head before they managed to complete their ninjutsu from Naruko's blind-spot, Naruko-, Naruko-, Naruko-...

Sakura was pretty sure it wasn't just hormones at this point. But there was something feral and breathtakingly beautiful in Naruko's vicious grin.

XXX

"He's now wanted for treason too, so technically his list of crimes has actually increased." Kakashi mused, pretending not to notice the way Sasuke's fists clenched. "But seeing as he wasn't the _instigator_ in any of this, he might be granted some leniency in the matter."

Sasuke rather obviously took a deep breath to calm himself. "Might?"

Kakashi sighed, discarding his stance of nonchalance. "His crimes are extensive. It really depends on whether someone is willing to vouch for him or not."

"And that'd be me?" Sasuke guessed, teeth gritted.

Kakashi offered a brief and silent prayer to anyone who'd listen to steal away his teenage-students before his hair started falling out from stress. Sasuke's situation was more delicate than most. "If you want to. Nobody will judge you for either choice, Sasuke-kun."

There was a long drawn out moment of silence, before Sasuke realized that Kakashi wasn't going to be saying anything more on the subject.

Sasuke nodded stiffly and marched off into the distance. Presumably to think on this further. Or to destroy a training-ground or two whilst screaming at the top of his lungs about his feelings.

Kakashi was a private enough person to allow his students the chance to vent by themselves. Even if it probably wasn't entirely healthy for them to do so. Not that Kakashi would know, seeing as the only one who was willing to touch the subject of psychology on his team was Sai, who was-... well, he was Sai. The boy didn't have a single socially intelligent bone in his body, which – coming from Kakashi – was saying something.

Uchiha Itachi's situation as a missing-nin was a bit of a gray-area, and the revelation of that affected nobody more than Sasuke.

Haruno Sakura having been a member of ANBU and ruthlessly loyal enough to the Village to expose Danzo's Root? That was more on Naruko's side of things.

And Kakashi really wished that he could pretend that it would simply... dissolve their relationship somehow, but-...

Kakashi sighed in defeat, turning to stare in the general direction of the hospital. The same one where a certain pink-haired girl had gone and gotten herself hospitalized whilst defending Naruko's back in what had devolved into a rather intensely chaotic fight.

It would've been a lot easier for Kakashi if he could've just claimed that Sakura was dangerous somehow to his student. However, the girl was about as dangerous to Naruko's well-being as the average lovesick puppy with a broken leg.

Then again, that was no reason to simply leave them to it and wish for their happiness. Kakashi was Naruko's guardian after all, so it stood to reason that he would be allowed to mess with them.

Ah, but the warm feeling of screwing around with his cute little students' minds.

XXX

Naruko had gotten scolded by Tsunade after it'd been all done and over with.

She was pretty sure she hadn't deserved at least half of the old hag's lecture, because why the hell should Naruko have to warn Tsunade about making friends with Sakura? It'd be super-weird to go around telling Tsunade about all of her friends whenever she found them. And she also didn't think she deserved the very thorough rant about 'obliviousness' and really had no idea why she'd been forced to sit through Tsunade digging through Academy's lesson-plans halfway through it, screaming about finding the incompetent buffoon who'd 'screwed with a perfectly functioning system'.

Still, no matter how dense the old hag seemed to think she was, Naruko could pick up hints in context perfectly fine, thank you very much.

Which was why she'd been silently praying to every deity she'd ever heard of to have the earth simply swallow her up and get the whole dying-thing over with. She'd much rather die from being crushed to death in comparison to catching alight from blushing too hard in embarrassment. At least it'd be faster.

She could kind of appreciate Tsunade's frustration with the Academy though, because it felt like she ought to have been told that some girls _liked-liked_ other girls at some point in her life. Even if thinking about doing stuff like, you know... kissing and stuff-... with Sakura, was-...

Sakura _did_ have very soft-looking lips, and she was really pretty, and the few times that Sakura had – very cautiously, the girl was a bit shy about touching for some reason – reached out and touched Naruko in turn, rather than simply leaning into Naruko's touches, always felt amazingly tingly and stuff-...

That probably didn't actually prove anything, right? It just meant that those hormone-things – that Naruko had heard Kakashi whimper silently to himself about – were kicking in or something. It didn't mean that she actually wanted to, you know-... do those kind of things, right?

Sakura was her friend. Naruko didn't want to suddenly screw that up just because Sakura was really really _really_ pretty. And wore tight pants. And could nearly pulverize a man's skull with her bare fists. And-...

Anyway, back to being scolded, Naruko _had_ kind of earned the other half of the lecture.

She'd ended up giving Sakura chakra-burns across one of her arms to go along with the broken bones she'd gotten from blocking an attack from Naruko's blind spot. All because she'd been startled into channeling the Kyuubi's chakra without thinking it through.

Naruko doubted that any lecture would've stopped her from doing it all over again, should she ever turn around to see Sakura drop like a sack of bricks with that stunned and pained expression on her face.

That'd been way worse than Sasuke's near-death back in Wave. Though that was probably mostly because Sasuke was kind of a dick, and Naruko would gleefully punt him out a window without a second thought if someone offered her-... Umm... She'd say 'offered her ramen', but she'd totally kick damn near everyone she knew out of a window for ramen.

Excepting Ayame – who'd give her better ramen – and Iruka – who'd _pay_ for her ramen – and maybe Sakura too – who'd probably think that watching Naruko punt people out through a window for ramen was a good reason to smile that fondly soft smile of hers.

And-... And maybe Naruko was a little bit worried that it was more than just hormones.

Still, with broken bones and chakra-burns, Sakura was stuck in the hospital for a long while. So Naruko had decided to be the super-nice person that Iruka-sensei would've wanted her to be – he was always going on about how important niceness was – by bringing her ramen.

Sakura was her rival for Ichiraku's best customer after all, so she'd definitely understand how important it was to have more ramen in her diet than the nurses would entirely approve of.

Seeing as the nurses wouldn't necessarily appreciate Naruko's super-niceness-of-ramen-bringing, Naruko had been forced to dodge around quite a lot of them, which was why she dropped down from the ceiling in Sakura's room.

Sakura didn't even twitch, still asleep apparently.

Pouting a little bit at having her awesome entrance ignored – even if Sakura was literally too asleep to notice – Naruko still found her lips twitching upwards at the sight of her, frown quickly fading to nothing.

Her short pink hair was unbound for once, spread across the white pillow, her eyes closed and her face blissfully free of tension. She really was the single prettiest girl Naruko had ever met. No contest at all, really.

Setting down the bowl of ramen on the little table next to her bed, Naruko set to work by silently – she didn't want to wake her up – dragging a chair over to the bed.

There was still a ton of emotional-stuff that Naruko should probably sort through before she did something stupid – like combing her fingers through Sakura's hair, or touch Sakura's lightly parted and endlessly soft-looking lips, or crawl into her hospital-bed alongside her and fall asleep whilst hugging her tightly. So, even if Naruko didn't exactly like thinking too deeply about much of anything, she could probably use Sakura's sleepy-time to try and figure out how to deal with that.

It wasn't like the ramen would cool. She'd managed to bully Ero-sennin into teaching her how to keep ramen warm forever and always.

It'd very nearly been enough to convince her to start calling him by his actual name. Except then the pervert had leered at Ayame, so obviously he didn't deserve an actual name.

Sakura's sleeping face twisted around a little bit, her nose twitching as if it'd caught a smell, and then she was... smiling.

Naruko felt her jaw slowly dropping open, staring at Sakura's sleeping face, at the way it somehow managed to relax even further. And at how utterly familiar that expression was.

Sakura always started smiling like that somewhere after Naruko's third bowl of ramen, and-...

Sakura really was indescribably pretty.

Mouth suddenly dry, Naruko desperately tried to not remember the warmth of hugging Sakura, the silky-soft smoothness of her hair, and the way her breath sometimes seemed to catch on something when she leaned into Naruko's touch extra-much.

Sakura's eyebrow twitched, and then an eyelid reluctantly pried itself open.

"Oh." Sakura blinked blearily up at her, green eyes warm and sleepily relaxed. "Good morning, Naruko."

Naruko suppressed the high-pitched noise that wanted to escape, and desperately tried to ignore the way her face was getting warm. "Yeah!" She grinned at Sakura, hoping that she wouldn't notice how red her face was, or that she'd guess that Naruko had been staring at her face for however-long-it'd-been. "'Morning! I brought ramen!"

And if her voice was a little more high-pitched than usual? It wasn't like anybody needed to know that for a brief and heart-stopping moment she'd wondered what it'd be like to be able to watch Sakura struggling reluctantly to wake up every morning from now on.

It was probably just hormones being weird and stuff.

XXX

Ino took another deep breath.

Her dad had informed her that Sakura had gone and gotten herself hospitalized, though he hadn't told her how that'd happened.

Ino wasn't entirely sure what she was supposed to do with that information, but at the same time-... Ino hadn't seen Sakura since their graduation, and apparently she'd been field-promoted to chunin at some point, and was now in the hospital.

It felt like it'd been years since they'd butted heads over Sasuke-kun. Years since the last time she'd seen her rival-friend.

So – in a way that made her pretty sure that her dad was manipulating her for her own good... again – Ino had decided to visit Sakura in the hospital. She wasn't really sure what she wanted to say, but then the flowers she'd picked should've made it blatantly obvious.

Contriteness, renewal, friendship, apology. All arranged with fidgety perfection.

Honestly, Ino was kind of hoping that Sakura would be asleep. It was still pretty early in the day, right? So that wouldn't be impossible, right? And if Sakura was asleep, Ino could just dump the flowers and leg it.

It wasn't like Sakura had any _other_ friends who were well-versed in the flower-language and had reason to dump this particular mix in her hospital room. Sakura would understand, and Ino wouldn't have to try to find the words for describing what she actually wanted to say.

It'd be best if Sakura was still asleep.

Another deep breath, and Ino sneakily pushed the door open without knocking – she was just going to peek a little bit to make sure that Sakura was actually asleep.

Blonde hair, two girls with red faces, a bowl of ramen, an arm wrapped in bandages, and Naruko feeding Sakura ramen, smiling and giggling to themselves all the way.

Ino honestly hadn't seen anything this blatantly romantic since the last time a couple of newlyweds had giggled their way into the flower shop. And it was _Naruko and Sakura_.

Then again, their faces _were_ ridiculously red, so they were probably really embarrassed about it. Which probably meant that they hadn't meant it to be romantic, and were now both embarrassed and amused by how it'd ended up looking.

Yeah! That made sense! Naruko was super-clueless about romance, anyway! And Sakura liked Sasuke! There was no way that this was actually as romantic and newlywed-like as it looked!

But there was-... Sakura's eyes were so warm-... Naruko's smile was so gentle-...

Ino swallowed, her mouth suddenly horribly dry for some reason, and opened her mouth to say something- _anything-at-all_.

Naruko's hand slipped, broth staining Sakura's cheek.

Sakura's smile turned into a huff of laughter, her eyes closing.

Naruko leaned in, eyes half-lidded and dazed, and licked it clean.

Sakura's eyes shot open, startled and breathless, their faces inches apart.

A moment suspended in time, staring into each other's eyes.

They kissed.

Ino made a choked high-pitched noise of utter mortification, her lungs burning from where she'd forgotten to breathe.

Both girls flinched away from each other, heads whirling around to stare at Ino with wide eyes.

How the hell was Ino supposed to deal with this?! She hadn't even managed to figure out the words for wanting to be friends with Sakura again! How was she supposed to deal with Sakura kissing _Naruko_ instead of mooning over Sasuke-kun?! What the actual hell was even going on?!

Ino opened her mouth and said the first thing that came to mind. "In that case, Sasuke-kun is mine!" She twitched, because that hadn't been what she'd wanted to-... "In fact! Naruko's whole team is mine!"

She made another high-pitched noise, face red, because that hadn't been what she'd wanted to say _either_ -...

"Maa maa." A voice behind her. "If you manage to catch the boys that's fine. But I think I'm a bit too old for you."

Naruko's and Sakura's faces were as wide-eyed and mortified as Ino's felt.

Kakashi smiled down at her, lazily amused. "Though I suppose I'm flattered."

Ino wished with her whole heart that the ground would swallow her up and crush her to death instantly. This was too much-! "Age is no problem for love!" -Did she say her whole heart? She meant her entire existence and soul!

Her arm shook as she pointed at Kakashi with what she guessed was supposed to be resolution in seducing him, or something. Mostly, Ino just wanted to die.

"Ah." Kakashi scratched his head, vaguely confused. "Well, I suppose. But you're still going to have to catch me."

"Just you wait!" Ino declared at the top of her lungs, threw the flowers in Sakura's general direction, and took off running to _anywhere-but-here_.

She was never going to live this down.

XXX

"Do you think it occurred to her that she just called dibs on _Sai_?" Naruko couldn't help but ask.

Sakura snorted from where she was straightening the flowers in their vase. "I don't think she was thinking much at all."

Naruko made a vaguely agreeable noise, leaning into Sakura's shoulder in a fidgety attempt at casualness. "Kakashi-sensei's face was kind of funny."

Sakura decided not to comment on that. There was no telling whether the man was spying on them at this point – even if he'd said that he needed to talk with Sarutobi Asuma about Ino's recent declaration – and Sakura wouldn't put it past him to do something horrible to her for laughing.

"Ne ne, Sakura. Do you think she's going to go through with it?" Naruko peered at her through her eyelashes, managing to look somehow both ridiculous and breathtakingly beautiful all at once.

Sakura resisted the urge to kiss her girlfriend-... Naruko was her girlfriend now, right? Sakura was pretty damn sure that the kiss they'd shared very much hadn't been any sort of friendship-kiss at least.

Focusing on the actual words, instead of the – soft, tasting of ramen, warm, surprisingly enthusiastic – lips they'd come from, Sakura gave it some thought. "I-... I'm not actually sure?"

For all that Sakura knew that her parents called her stubborn to a fault and a horribly sore loser, Ino was... very similar. She wasn't sure if that was because she'd somehow inherited her childhood friend's attitude towards life, or if their mutual stubborn refusal to ever admit defeat was a coincidence.

Either way, Sakura couldn't really see Ino giving up on her declaration to seduce all three of the males of Team 7. Maybe if the Hokage ordered it? Or if someone managed to get to her before she fully talked herself into going through with it. She'd looked about as mortified about what she was saying as Sakura had been to the realization that Kakashi had walked in on Naruko and her making-out.

Naruko shifted with a thoughtful hum, and her face was so close-...

...- Naruko pulled back, grinning down at her from where she'd at some point ended up straddling her hips. "Imagine it, Sakura." Her voice was caught somewhere between huskily breathless and on the verge of giggling herself to death. "Sasuke and Sai, and Kakashi-sensei. Imagine their _kids_."

Sakura blinked up at her, dazed, and suddenly vaguely horrified at the imagery. There should be some kind of limit to stubborn obstinate grumpiness, but with _Ino_ as the mother? Ino who never backed down from anything at all ever?

Naruko watched her face, and then buried her face into Sakura's collar, wheezing with laughter.

"It's not funny, Naruko!" Sakura tried to shake her. "We have to stop this no matter what!"

XXX

 **A/n: And that's where I'm ending it. I'd probably end up pitying Kakashi's desperate attempts to get Asuma to reel in Ino's competitive-streak if I continued any further. (Mainly because Asuma would laugh himself into a coma before even trying to curb Ino's stubbornness. And he probably wouldn't even have the shame to do it somewhere where Kakashi couldn't see him. The jerk.)**

 **I was honestly a bit surprised by how many reviewers seemed to be expecting a long story after the first chapter, seeing as... well, it's written by** _ **me**_ **. Though I suppose I might've forgotten to mention that the second chapter would also be the last. Oops. (Normally I'm better at informing people of that part. Sorry.)**

 **Still kind of amazed that this got finished, when usually these kinds of mood-fics always seem to end up getting discontinued. And I hope that it's been as much fun for you guys as it has been for me.**


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